KUALA LUMPUR, April 3 — Share prices on Bursa Malaysia extended yesterday's gains to open slightly higher today on continued mild buying interest, dealers said.

At 9.15am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 0.86 of a point better at 1,852.86 after opening 2.32 points higher at 1,854.32.

HwangDBS Vickers Research said the local bourse may continue to trend sideways but with a slight positive bias, possibly advancing towards the immediate resistance level of 1,860 ahead.

"The key US equity barometers posted new record levels last night when they climbed between 0.2 and 0.3 per cent at the closing bell. Essentially, sentiment was lifted by expectations of rising job creations in the economy.

"With Wall Street still on the rise, the upbeat mood could be felt on our local bourse too," it said in a research note today.

Gainers outpaced losers 178 to 92, while 191 counters were unchanged, 1,147 untraded and 14 others were suspended.

Turnover stood at 181.75 million shares worth RM128.08 million.

On the scoreboard, the Industrial Index slipped 9.02 points to 3,190.11 but the Plantation Index garnered 14.42 points to 8,941.84 and the Finance Index climbed 68.16 points to 16,773.7.

The FBM Emas Index advanced 9.99 points to 12,843.93, the FBMT100 Index added 7.86 points to 12,490.39, the FBM 70 jumped 17.04 points to 14,057.95 and the FBM Ace declined 32.5 points to 6,808.72.

Among actives, Ingenuity Consolidated was flat at 9.5 sen, Insas rose four sen to RM1.35 while Asian Pac and Xidelang earned half-a-sen each to 22 sen and 27.5 sen, respectively.

As for heavyweights, Maybank was flat at RM9.67, Tenaga Nasional declined 30 sen to RM11.44, Axiata eased one sen to RM6,72 but CIMB increased three sen to RM7.24. — Bernama